Dungeon Hunter: Alliance Review

Online is very buggy; no new content for this port; enemies level up with you.

There seems to be a misconception going around at the moment with some game reviewers  Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is in no way a port of the game available on Apple devices. There is a Dungeon Hunter game for iOS devices and smartphones that has the same plot but to call this game a port is severely misleading. There is however a Dungeon Hunter: Alliance released on the PSN which is what this is a port of. While that game might not have been as big of a hit as the iOS version it was still a pretty solid hack and slash experience. Luckily that survives the transition to the Vita.

Alliance follows the story of a king who is murdered by his wife. Years after his passing he is resurrected by a fairy as they believe he is the only one who can stop the power mad queen. Your king will have to rely on his equipment, skills and his fairy allies if he's going to stop his loving wife from ruining the kingdom even further. This adventure will take him about ten hours although it does go a bit quicker if you bring your buddies along.

But the story in these sorts of games is secondary to the gameplay so it's a good thing that the game controls excellently. Maneuvering with one analog stick you use the other buttons to activate your various abilities, attack or pick up equipment. Your characters melee attacks turn to attack nearby enemies so there is a bit of auto-correct if your aim happens to be a little bit off. Aiming your special moves is much the same except for your fairy which is controlled with the right analog stick or the back touch screen so you have far greater control of this than your other attacks. All of this is very responsive and easily controlled once you get used to it which, admittedly, can take a bit.

You can choose to tackle the adventure alone, which is honestly how the game was designed to be played, or you can go at it with up to four friends. This is kind of a weird multiplayer mode since at least two of you are going to be playing as the same character (more likely three or four if you play the mage as everyone plays the mage online) but having some allies at your back makes some of the bigger throw downs much more manageable and enjoyable.

Unfortunately there can be some serious connection issues and even getting into a game with your friends or randoms can be problematic. It just seems like the game chooses not to connect at times until it eventually decides it's messed with you enough and finally starts working. Even then the lot of you is stuck on the same screen for some reason, not allowing the party to wander very far from each other. This can be problematic dealing with the bigger enemies, allowing them to level your whole group with ease because you accidentally clustered up.

There's plenty of loot to be had in this adventure, so much so that it's in your best interest to turn on the auto-transmute option to get rid of the junk. This allows you to turn the trash into gold without going to a merchant so you can purchase healing potions in the dungeons quite easily. While there is a lot of loot there is very loot awesome equipment to be had to really power your character up with much of your advancement coming from your skills as you gain levels. Sadly this can be quite a problem when dealing with the huge enemy encounters that are all leveling up to meet you, preventing you from ever manhandling even the simplest, weakest of enemies. It becomes a battle of attrition against the various hordes, downing potions to stay alive while they horde you.

Dungeon Hunter looks pretty good although it doesn't take advantage of the PS Vita's horsepower. As a matter of fact there seems to be some optimization issues at play here as the game can churn to a screeching halt when too much action starts happening on the screen. The frame rate will just start chugging away when too much starts happening and it really just ruins the experience. While it's easy to control the game if this starts happening, invariably when fighting tough groups of enemies, it makes it so much harder to survive.

Honestly though the biggest problem here is that there is little reason for you to purchase this title if you have access to a PS3. The Vita controls aren't all that big of a deal and the console version is a whole $20 cheaper than the Vita version. That's enough for you to purchase an entirely new game off of the PSN in addition to DH:A so that's a pretty big deal. Plus the console version doesn't have the frame rate issues and has couch co-op to totally avoid the online connection issues. But if you're jonesing for a mobile hack and slash adventure then this game works just fine.

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About the Author

Gaming for the past twenty years Daniel Acaba has put in plenty of time into video games. Time enough for them to become a huge part of his life although one has to wonder what else he could have been accomplished with all that time if he wasn't gaming it away. But he prefers not to think of such trivial details and enjoy the games as they come.

About this Review

The primary platform in which our evaluation was conducted for the basis of this review is the PlayStation Vita version of the game.